


if we stand for nothing, we'll for for anything

by kadaransmuggler



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'Do you think I'll grow up to be a hero one day?' Anaba asked, and Adaia smiled at her daughter. </p>
<p>'I think you can be whatever you want to be, little one,' she answered, and Anaba's jaw had a stubborn set to it already. </p>
<p>'I'm going to be just like Loghain, one day, Mama, I promise,' little Anaba answered, and Adaia didn't doubt it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	if we stand for nothing, we'll for for anything

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a comic on tumblr by ankalime. I loved the idea of a Warden who grew up admiring Loghain and then going through the events of Origins, so I came up with this. 
> 
> The comic can be found here: http://ankalime.tumblr.com/post/146911224525/the-story-of-the-battle-of-river-dane-was-one-of

There were few books in the Tabris household as Anaba grew up. Each one, as a result, was treasured and loved and cared for and read many, many times. Anaba grew up holding the stories close to her heart, keeping them there. Her favorite was the story of the Hero of River Dane. Most nights, she made her father sit with her and read her the story, even after she knew the story better than he. The girl, it seemed, had found the first person she looked up to in the form of Loghain Mac Tir.

Perhaps it was because he was the poor son of a poor farmer and Anaba was the poor daughter of a poor alienage elf, and she wanted to be a hero and do great and wonderful things, too. Like Loghain Mac Tir, and like Adaia Tabris, Anaba wanted to grow up to be fierce and proud and, most of all, a hero. She was delighted when her mother offered to train her and teach her what she knew. When she would finally hit her mother with the flat edge of the wooden practice sword, or when she would finally block a blow in time with the hard sheet of metal serving as a shield, Anaba thought of the Hero of River Dane.

"Do you think I could ever be like him, Mama?" she asked, once, after a long day of training when they sat by the fire with hot mugs of elfroot tea and plenty of bruises. Her mother smiles and pulls her close, smelling like sweat and leather and the polish she used on her armor.

"Maybe one day, little one. You can be anything you want to be," her mother answered, and Anaba felt a vicious proudness rise up in her. Her mother never handed out idle compliments, never told her anything but the truth.

"I'm going to be a hero, just like him, one day Mama, I promise! Just you wait and see!" Anaba said, and Adaia looked at her daughter with her scraped knees and messy pigtails and dirt-smeared face, and she did not doubt that her child would one day do great and wonderful things.

* * *

When Adaia Tabris was killed, it took Soris and Shianni and Cyrion all to hold Anaba back long enough to remove her sword and shield from her reach. "Think this through, cousin," Soris pleaded, and Anaba's breath came in short, ragged, angry pants.

"I should kill them! They killed her!" Anaba snarled, and she nearly twisted out of Soris' grip, very nearly went after the humans with nothing but her fists and her rage and her grief, all-consuming and terrible.

"Anaba, think this through!" Soris said again, and Anaba stopped writhing, turned and looked at Soris with her brown hair hanging in her eyes.

"I wasn't good enough to protect her. I should at least be good enough to avenge her," Anaba says, and her voice is hoarse from yelling and her eyes are wild and Soris thinks he understands.

"That's what a hero would do, huh?" he asks, and Anaba meets her eyes, each of them realizing in the space of a breath that Anaba is doing this because of some desperate hero complex instead of a need for revenge.

"Yeah. I guess it is what a hero would do," Anaba mutters, and suddenly all the fight leaves her in a great big sigh.

"Most of them would, cousin. Most of them. But we're elves in a human city and we don't get to be heroes," Soris says, and Anaba shakes her hair out of her eyes, dirty and tangled as it is, and there is a fierceness that cannot be shaken from her.

"Most of us don't. But I will, one day. For my mother," Anaba says, and it has the hard finality of a promise. Years later, Duncan arrives, and Anaba finally becomes the hero she wanted to be.

* * *

Anaba travels from Denerim to Ostagar, and there she learns the meaning of duty and the meaning of honor. She survives the Joining through sheer determination, and it is in her first battle that she learns that hero is just another word for mourner because all that this has been so far was blood and sweat and loss and taint and Anaba wonders how she ever thought she could have wanted this. Still, she fights, and she mourns, and she endures.

There's a pretty witch the follows them and a pretty sister in Lothering. There's a stern and angry Qunari, too, and Anaba thinks she is most like him out of everyone. Later, there is a kind and gentle mage that reminds her of some of the elders in the village, and another elf, and even a dwarf. She finds a golem, too, and by the time Anaba has gathered an army, she has learned what it means to be a hero and a leader and a friend because she is all of these things.

Her hard and broken edges fit perfectly against Leliana's soft ones, and Anaba learns that sometimes loss doesn't have to result in the hard and angry person that she is. There is power in softness, too, it seems, and Anaba slowly learns how to fall in love, even though it's a messy business.   
  
Leliana sings songs of great heroes and tells tales of great legends, because she knows Anaba has an odd fascination with heroes that started in a hovel in the capital of Ferelden. "Do you think I'll ever be a hero?" Anaba asks one night as they lay curled together under the stars. Leliana's answering smile is a bright thing, full of warmth and love.

"I think you're a hero already, my love," Leliana answers and presses soft kisses to the hard line of Anaba's jaw. Anaba wonders how everything managed to come together perfectly enough that she managed to find herself here, in the right spot at the right time with the right person that knows her perfectly.

She wonders how different it all would have been if she had stayed in the alienage and if Nelaros hadn't died. She wonders if that marriage would have been a happy one. In the end, she decides that focusing on could-have-beens is not good for her nor anyone.

* * *

Anaba and Anora made quite the team, it seemed. In the end, however, Anaba was alone when she stood over Loghain, her sword at his throat and her hand shaking. "Go ahead and finish him," Alistair snarls from somewhere, but Anaba takes another look at the beaten man at her feet, and she thinks of that moment by the fire with her mother, when she had promised that she would be a hero. She lowers her sword, and she and Loghain regard each other for a few agonizing seconds.

"Join us," she says, instead, her voice oddly breathless, "join the Wardens." Loghain is shocked, and he isn't the only one, but Riordan is proud of her and she is doing her duty.

"How could you spare him?" Alistair demands. She can see the same question in Loghain's eyes, and instead of answering Alistair she answers him.

"You taught me how to be a hero. I'm not going to betray that," she says, instead of whatever bullshit excuse that would have made everyone proud, and her breathing is ragged and there is an aching in her chest, but it's a good ache, she thinks, because being a hero sometimes means mercy too.

* * *

In the end, Anaba convinced Alistair and Anora to marry.

"It is an interesting choice. How did you make it?" Eamon asked her, later.

"You humans act like blood is all, but it is not always enough," she answered, a dry laugh escaping her cracked and bleeding lips. Eamon does not question her again.

* * *

"I am proud to stand beside you, my friend," Loghain says, just before the head into Fort Drakon, where the end of whatever this has been lies ahead. Anaba thinks of Morrigan, and the sacrifice her friend made, and she wonders if she could have done the same thing.

"I'm surprised. You've spent the entire Blight going against me," Anaba says, but there is amusement glittering in the depths of her eyes, an easy camaraderie between them.

"Let's just say I've still got a few lessons to learn about what it means to be a hero," he says, and he ruffles her hair. She feels, for a moment, like she is a child again. She nudges Loghain, laughing, and when they go to face the archdemon, death pressing against them from all sides, Anaba's heart feels the lightest it has since her mother died. Heroes, it seem, are made out of determination and grief and loss and love and Anaba has all of these in spades.


End file.
